Lost River Film Fest will serve up a cinematic cocktail of both newly crafted shorts & feature-length films — culled from across the universe, via our call for entries here — as well as workshops, interactive events, retrospective screenings, parties & concerts, among confirmed films, with numerous more to be announced in coming weeks

Tower

w/ Director Keith Maitland and Officer Ray Martinez, who stormed the gunman, both in attendance for Q&A

Fifty years ago, a lone gunman rode the elevator to the 27th floor of the University of Texas Tower, dragged his footlocker out to the observation deck & opened fire. Hundreds of students, professors, tourists & locals witnessed the 96-minute killing spree — crouched behind trees, hid under desks & in stairwells, or, if they had been hit, played dead. National networks carried the live feed of the ongoing gun battle, the first live national broadcast of a domestic massacre underway. When gun blasts finally halted, the toll included 16 dead, dozens of wounded & a shaken nation left trying to understand. TOWER explores this important story as it has never been told: by those intrepid survivors who got shot, fired back, lost loved ones & saved lives by selflessly risking their own.

NO NO: A DOCKUMENTARY

w/ Produce Jeffrey Brown in attendance

NO NO: A DOCKUMENTARY recounts the experiences of major-league pitcher Dock Ellis -- best known for throwing a no-hitter while hallucinating on LSD, but also a flashy figure in pop culture & Black empowerment. Self-dubbed the "Mohammad Ali of Baseball," Ellis defied white supremacist threats throughout the tumultuous 60s & 70s. After a struggle with drug dependency, he devoted the latter part of his life to assisting those who grapple with addiction. Nominated for Grand Jury Prize at 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

When We Burn Out

Director’s Cut w/ filmmaker Vanessa Pla, in attendance for Q&A

Filmed in Wonder World, the San Marcos roadside attraction frozen in the eighties, this 2017 surrealist stoner comedy follows a tight-knit ensemble of slacker youths. After the park’s owner Buddy perishes in a tragic accident, his son Mike — a recent college grad swamped with a slew of unsavory habits, not limited to sleeping past three every “morning" — handles the patriarch’s death poorly, spiraling down a path of destruction… Will he bring the park down with him or can his strange crew of buddies band together to spare the magicial theme park an otherwise imminent doom?

Sir Doug & The Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove

w/ Director Joe Nick Patoski in attendance for Q&A

A biopic of Doug Sahm, the wild-man musicians' musician & unsung hero of Texas music. A country music child prodigy & teenage R&B dynamo who sparked a riot at his San Anto high school, Sahm emerged an international rock star leading the Sir Douglas Quintet. He landed in San Fran just in time for the Summer of Love in 1967, returning to Texas as the cowboy hippie rocker who built a burgeoning music scene in Austin before forming the Tex-Mex super group The Texas Tornados. A kinetic, quirky character with a solid sense of place as well as an innate wanderlust, Doug Sahm’s tale is the story of Texas music.

SOUTHWEST OF SALEM excavates the nightmarish persecution of four Latina lesbians in San Antonio, wrongfully convicted of gang-raping two little girls during the Satanic Panic of the 90s; it starts inside a Texas prison, where they've spent a decade behind bars. Employing old home videos, alongside verité footage & interviews, the film explores their personal narratives & search for exculpatory evidence to free themselves. Winner of a Peabody Award, a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Documentary & Critic's Choice Award for Best First Feature, SOUTHWEST OF SALEM was mentioned in the first paragraph of a court ruling last year that, at long last, exonerated the falsely accused women.

REQUIEM FOR A RUNNING BACK

w/ Director Rebecca Carpenter in attendance

REQUIEM FOR A RUNNING BACK stands at the center of controversy presently engulfing the NFL: staggering findings of CTE, a degenerative brain disease, in football players that results in rage, social withdrawal & other unusual conduct. The film follows the family of Lew Carpenter -- father of both the director as well as San Marcos City Council member Lisa Prewitt -- who is diagnosed postmortem, after a career with Vince Lombardi's championship Green Bay Packers. Winner of 2017 Award of Excellence by Impact Doc Awards.